University of Georgia Athletics
A Quick Chat With ... Lee McCoy
April 16, 2015 | Men's Golf
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
ATHENS, Ga. -- Lee McCoy is on quite a roll. The Georgia men's golfer has made school history by winning his past three tournaments and heads into the SEC Championships, which begin today at the Sea Island Golf Club on St. Simons Island, at the top of his game.
A junior from Clarksville, Ga., McCoy is No. 3 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings and is one of the 10 finalists for the Ben Hogan Award, which is awarded to the nation's top male amateur. His four wins this season tie the school record, shared by current PGA Tour pros Chris Kirk and Russell Henley.
McCoy took a few minutes for a quick chat Tuesday:
Frierson: Baseball players, fighters and wrestlers all have their walk-up music. If golf had it, what would yours be?
McCoy: I would try to pick something calm and relaxing. Not necessarily a song like you'd hear in football or baseball or whatever. They're usually playing some kind of pump-up music and that's not necessarily what I'd be looking for. The more relaxed I am and the more fun I'm having, the better I'm typically going to do.
Frierson: When you're on a run like you're on now, do any superstitions come into play?
McCoy: To an extent, lately, after I play a good round I try to do everything the same way the next day. But I also know that it doesn't matter and sometimes I'll change something because I know it's completely irrelevant.
But then again, I wear the same pair of underwear on the last day of every tournament. Every tournament I've won in college, I've worn the same pair of underwear. So I've been trying to get better at it (superstitions), and then there's that, and I'm not getting rid of that.
Frierson: So it's the battle of, clearly that underwear has nothing to do with how you play, but at the same time what's the harm in continuing to wear the same thing over and over.
McCoy: They do get washed. I promise, there's no flies buzzing around. There's no lucky flies. It's just, I put them on in the morning and go, these are my lucky underwear and I'm going to go win today. It's probably got nothing to do with it, but I'm not going to change it if it's working.
Frierson: If you could be in any foursome, if you could put together your dream foursome, who would be in it?
McCoy: My biggest golf idol is Arnold Palmer, so he would be in there. Maybe in his younger years when he could still move it. If we were playing tomorrow it would probably be Jordan Spieth. I grew up playing junior golf with Jordan and he's an incredible guy, who's really talented. I can't speak enough to how good of a dude he is.
The fourth guy ... if I could throw a Happy Gilmore in there I'd probably do that. It's a dream, I can put whoever I want in it, I guess.
Frierson: Speaking of Spieth, how much inspiration do you take from seeing him, somebody that you grow up playing against, win the Masters?
McCoy: It's kind of bittersweet. He was a guy I was rooting for the whole week, aside from all the Georgia Bulldogs, because you want to see a Bulldog win. But down the stretch I was rooting for him.
It was great to see him win, but there's the flip-side to the coin that's just jealousy. There's no other way to put it, you just want to be there. Watching a guy do it that young, it just makes you crave it. It's almost hard to just sit there and watch.
I went down there on Sunday and put my chair behind No. 12 tee and watched every single group come through. You just crave it so bad.
There's nothing they do that's incredibly different from what I do. There's definitely still things that I need to improve on before I'm completely ready to play at that level, and I think the only thing that's going to get me there is actually playing on the tour.
Frierson: Obviously you're in the hunt for the Palmer Cup and the Walker Cup. How big a motivator are those things for you at this point in your career?
McCoy: They're at the top. The Palmer Cup and the Walker Cup team, those are the two things I want most. They're right up there with the (Fred) Haskins and Ben Hogan Award. I'd almost rather make the Walker Cup team than win the Ben Hogan Award.
Playing for my country, that's something that I haven't been able to experience yet. Playing for Georgia and playing for the Bulldog Nation is great, but playing for your country, I think, is something on a whole other level. That's been my biggest goal since the start of the spring, since I went to that (Walker Cup) practice session in December.
John Frierson is a staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Hall of Fame at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex. Follow him on Twitter: @TheFrierson and @ITAHallofFame.
